The Effect Of Your Soul On Your Brain

It would be ideal if the mind were perfectly clear and present in the moment, with no obstacles and blockages. To achieve that, the brain must change. Being part of the body, your brain has its own healing mechanisms. But old conditioning, once it gets established in your brain, becomes part of its neural networks.

From your soul’s perspective, these imprints are all subject to change. Moments of realization occur, and then however it is wired, the brain adapts. Unfortunately, current brain science accepts without question that brain changes are physical. Can we show that the brain is actually wireless? If we can, the way is open for awareness as the key to personal transformation.

The brain’s pathways do not have to be sculpted by direct physical experience. They can be shaped vicariously. Is that how we learn in the first place?

The brain doesn’t even need instructions to make new pathways. An unknown world becomes familiar simply by looking. It appears that babies develop a mirroring system in the first year of life simply by paying attention to significant events around them.

Is this how you learn from the soul, too? We have one strong clue that it is. Sages believe that merely setting eyes on a saint brings the blessing, and now we can see how: the devotee’s brain is changed by the act of looking.

Why, then, can’t my own soul do the same? All the soul has to do is radiate its influence. If simply being close to a saint is enough, how much closer are you and I to our own souls? Higher consciousness is a field, like electricity or magnetism, and when a person comes in contact with that field, the brain mirrors it.

I wish Dr. Chopra would give readers more explicit help in avoiding bifurcated framing and misleading verbalization. Just because we have the word "soul" doesn't mean it denotes any discrete or definite "thing." Soul is a way of referring to a person's holistic or total function. Spirit is not apart from matter except as we conceive of them. "They" are as unified as the several facets of a gemstone or the (yes) several sides of a coin.